Each Saturday a sample is posted in the Beat Battles forum for beat makers to work. The beats must be posted on a Soundcloud group by Wednesday. Voting takes place on the board Thursday. The winner chooses the sample and sets rules for the next battle. The Beat Battles are run entirely by users of the Stones Throw Message Board.

The winner of the previous week's battle sets the rules. Here are the default rules:• One beat per person• Flip the chosen sample any way you want • Outside drums and bass are allowed• No outside keys/synth unless stated• No A Cappellas• Vocal samples/skits are allowed• Cuts/scratches are permitted• Don't post external links unless they are in the comments section of your own beats• Only post beats for the battle to the Soundcloud group - others will be deleted

VOTING

Voting takes place in a separate thread for each Beat Battle on the Beat Battles forum. Keep it fair. Asking your friends/family to vote for you is not how you win. If you have entered the battles before you can vote or if you have a post count of 5+• Votes must be in by Friday, 12:00AM Pacific Time.• Don't vote for yourself• Make your votes easy to read - using BOLD, BIG FONTS and HIGHLIGHTS is recommended

I think we must change the vote process to be fair as possible. So, I propose that the moderator of the group will keep the tracks 'pending approval' until voting day, at which point all beats go live to the group page simultaneously.

new permanent rule suggestion: YOU MUST PUT STBB IN THE TITLE OF YOUR BEAT. it's getting ridiculous with all the spam. i can't even tell during weeks i'm not battling (most weeks) if shit is spam or not. otherwise your beat will be insta-deleted

What follows is a list of all Stones Throw Beat Battle Moderators. If you have questions, issues, or complaints about the battles or need clarification about why you were banned, how to get unbanned, etc., please contact a mod via STMB or SoundCloud.

It seems there is not a stable time limit. My random thought, why not allow any length of beat to be posted, however the listener/voter is only obligated to listen to the stated time limit or however long they really feel like listening (i.e. for this week's 2 minute limit feel free to chop off the last 40 seconds or so of my beat 2 minute plus beat, which really is only a 2x repeat of the hook).

So if you have some amazing shit happening after the time limit and no one hears it...oh well dude. I don't know just my random thought and also because I'm too lazy to reformat my stuff...and it wouldn't sound proper ending the beat abruptly without the hook coming in again.

I actually feel that...my beat this week went over by about 10 seconds because it was the right way to end the track...there was a vibe I was going for, and without ending it proper it would have fallen flat. Plus side for me is that I know I aint winning, so I don't mind that I went over for the sake of the track ending proper.

But from what I found out a few weeks ago no one really listens to your whole track, they skip through it, made me think there's no point making a beat longer than 30 secs, I don't put all the effort in to compose something which the majority will skip through.

I do find it rude and disrespectful when I listen to each beat the whole way through, and others aren't, or have no intention too.

Just don't sweat the time issue too much, enjoy what your doing have fun and don't let the ruling's or boring stuff get in the way.

Can I delete my old version of this actual battle? and upload a better version? because its too much compressed and nobody can hear it.

no. You can but it's auto DQ. Once you post it and put it in the stbb soundcloud it's locked, similar to when you let go of a piece in a game of chess lol. This stops people from refining their entries based on what other people have created. Ie: I make my beat, post it. Then someone uses the sample differently (and more creatively), so I go back, change mine, and re-post it.... It defeats the purpose of a 'Battle'

Also finding mistakes after you've posted will teach you to print and share better "Final" mixes in the future.